Nicholson: "We will change the Civil Marriage Act so that any marriages performed in Canada that aren't recognized in the couple's home jurisdiction will be recognized in Canada."

If the marriages are already valid, there is no need to change the law. These marriages are already recognized. At best, the Minister has contradicted himself. At worst, the government's position really is that these marriages are not valid. That being the case, is it the position of the government that these "marriages" are retroactively legitimized upon the law changing, or will the couples in question have to officially marry --again -- to be married.

Update

It looks like the Minister did contradict himself. Good.

Nicholson: "I want to make it clear that in our government's view, these marriages are valid,"

The law will be changed so that marriages that we just said are valid are valid.

The gap in the law was, like every thing else that goes wrong, is the Liberals fault. The Liberals are the reason why we have to change the law to make sure that these marriages that are valid are valid.

In other words, we are going to pretend that there is a gap in the law and pretend to fix that nonexistent gap in the law because we once pretended that these marriages never happened.

5 comments:

The bad news for the Liberals is, the Conservatives came out looking like the savours of SSM by fixing a problem left to them by the Liberals...its probably not true but thats the optics of it.The good news for the LPC is, the Cons still see them as their main opponent and understand fully the the NDP surge was a one time event.So, maybe the LPC should stop the scary scary routine, its not working and its shoring up Con support.

Really. What I find highly amusing is the legions of Tory Toadies, such as yourself, parroting a party line that makes no sense whatsoever. After all, Nicholson is trying very hard to have his cake and eat it too. He is, on the one hand, claiming that their is gap in the law and promising legislation that will recognize all SSM in Canada regardless of any domicile conflict. On the other hand, he is saying Canada already recognizes all SSM.

Now, some have made this whole mess out to be some kind of attempt to role back SSM in Canada. I have no idea what would lead one to that conclusion. It in no way lays the legal foundation for that and besides that ship has sailed. Anyone with any knowledge of Canadian politics realizes that it would political suicide for the Tories to reopen the debate. SSM is not at all like abortion; it is not going to stick around for a generation. The arguments against SSM are terrible. It is a generational change and once it happens there is no turning back.

All that being said, the whole episode including Nicholson's mealy mouth response has me wondering what the hell is going on at the department of justice. This was an amazing bad legal position, viz., denying that marriages ever happened, to take in the divorce case and if this is any indication of the quality of work being produced there, we are in trouble. Their legal option had everyone baffled. Canada looked ridiculous.

By the way, I can assure you that it will be a cold day in hell before the gay and lesbian community develops the warm fuzzies for Stephen Harper.